The High Court has refused a prisoner’s application to extend the time for challenging the Legal Aid Board’s refusal to pay his legal costs under the Legal Aid Custody Issues Scheme. Ms Justice Bolger found that his judicial review was filed outside the three-month limit and declined to extend it.
The case concerned proceedings arising after Darren Winters was injured in a prison vehicle collision on 15 June 2022 while being transported back to prison from a court appearance. He sought an order requiring medical treatment. Those proceedings were struck out by consent on 25 October 2022, when the court recommended that his costs be paid under the scheme.
The Legal Aid Board refused the costs application in a letter dated 18 July 2023, saying the proceedings related to the manner of his detention and fell outside the scheme. Winters’ solicitors asked the Board to reconsider. The Board restated its position on 3 October 2023. Winters issued the present judicial review on 19 October.
The judge held that the time limit ran from the Board’s original decision on 18 July. The later correspondence did not create a new decision or reset the deadline. The proceedings were therefore out of time. Although Winters sought an extension under the court’s inherent jurisdiction, no application had been made in accordance with the relevant court rules, and the judge found no established basis to extend time. She also considered the underlying challenge insufficiently strong or compelling to justify an extension.
On the substance, the judge concluded that the Board had correctly interpreted the scheme. Being injured while travelling from court to prison did not make the medical-treatment dispute a matter concerning criminal proceedings, and it did not put Winters’ liberty at issue: hospital attendance would not have changed his detention. The judge said the court’s earlier costs recommendation was a weighty consideration, but remained subject to the Board deciding whether the application fell within the administrative scheme.
Winters also argued that refusing scheme coverage interfered with his rights to access the courts and bodily integrity. The judge said access to the courts does not itself include a right to legal aid, and he had been able to bring the earlier proceedings. She found no evidence that the failure to arrange hospital attendance caused or worsened medical symptoms, and concluded that excluding the proceedings from the scheme did not unlawfully interfere with his bodily-integrity rights.
The court refused the extension of time. Its costs view was indicative only: the judge said the respondents were entitled to costs, subject to adjudication if the parties could not agree. Further submissions and final orders were listed for 30 January 2025.